Purpose

The usability assessment of the ALA website that we undertook this fall
has been completed, and we expect to have a report on the assessment within the next week or two. At this point, we want to build on the results of the usability assessment to develop a vision and an outline of a plan for moving forward on important changes to the website.

To that end, a planning retreat is being held in Chicago on Monday, December 18, 2006. The basic purposes of the retreat are to answer the question, "What would we do if we were starting with a clean slate?" and to develop a vision statement and an outline of a plan for the ideal website to serve our diverse needs. Retreat participants will consist of members and staff, many of whom also participated in stakeholder interviews. In addition, we will also have some "fresh eyes" among the participants.

While we know we will not be able to implement all the recommendations from the group immediately, we do plan on moving forward with as many as possible within the next 3 to 6 months.

The retreat will be facilitated by Elizabeth Buie, Principal Usability Specialist and Director of Interaction Design at UserWorks, the company that conducted the usability assessment. In order to make sure that the planning process and the development of future directions for the ALA website will be as transparent as possible, we have established a blog for discussion and this wiki for gathering background material and outcomes. The session itself will be blogged, with comments invited from outside the group.

- If you have problems accessing these documents, please contact Jenny Levine for copies.

Please note that the focus group reports (the first two documents in the above list) are not "rough drafts" in the sense of being preliminary versions that will be updated later. They are informal documents that are not in UserWorks' delivery schedule and that we provided to give ALA a preview of the findings before the formal report was ready. The findings that these reports describe are being incorporated into the User and Task Analysis Report, which will be delivered by December 13. -E. Buie, UserWorks

Introduction (Agenda Items I-V)

Buie asks participants to note what they hope to get out of this workshop.
Some answers include: brainstorming; learn how Web site is developed; learn how usability issues are addressed/solved; learn about ALA structure (in regard to Web site development); learn about how to bring together diverse set of people/divisions for ALA membership via ALA Web site; have this group be able to come to consensus to implement new site; IT needs; information sharing.

Buie says we'll not come out with set of requirements today but will come away with set of goals and objectives that will help to establish requirements.
Buie says we'll start about vision, strategy, goals. This group will not come out with a "document," but instead will come away with action items.

Buie asks for ground rules. Participants determine:

1. No design

2. Process for tabling and moving on

3. Make sure everyone is heard

4. Talk about future

Buie Provides Overview of Usability Assessment

Vision (Agenda Items VI and VII)

*Buie: start with brainstorming: "If you had site you want, what would people say about it?"

*Break up into five small groups, each covering top five descriptions, for discussion, to:

1. crystallize these into goals and objectives (HOW WE CAN MAKE THIS HAPPEN)
Specifics (not how to do it, but what it would do)
2. flesh out abstract terms
3. realistic or idealistic? Buie says in between (don’t list anything you know isn’t possible).

Group Results

Group 1: Morphable/Customizable (presented by Keith M. Fiels)
My ALA (morphable/custom
More sophisticated/improved
Avail. For nonmembers
More drag and drop
Updates be pushed out (reflected in 'My ALA')
Customized crawlers
Customizable feeds (via RSS or email)
Recommended function (like Amazon, prompting)
Affinity (opps for communication with other members)
Interface (ability to pick your own)
Be able to pick your own language (translation better too)
Own format (larger font size)
Printer friendly version
Wiki-wise web site (more opportunities for you to contribute)
Find out about this (when you renewed, be invited set up My ALA, easy to use tutorial)

Group 2: Participatory/Collaborative (presented by Mary Ellen Davis and John Chrastka)
Coments on products
Self-forming communities
Social networking (facebook); be able to integrate ‘MY ALA’ into other sites
Wikis, blogs, RSS, podcasts (all tools exist right now)
Be ready with for newly developed tools
Surveys
Cross-structural collaboration

Group 3: Intuitive (presented by Michelle Frisque)
Utilize audience based navigation
Use language is simple (concise, no jargon)
Represent different types of learning styles (visual, auditory)
Conventional graphic representation , i.e., shopping cart
Develop conventions that apply consistently across all pages (form, graphic, members only, frame)
Have template available for back end
All incons the same
Reduce and define acronyms
Less linear and textual
Info. Should be packaged in many different ways (need built-in duplication/redundancy)
Pages should be current
Links need to go where you think they go
Set up a process to gather data for future Web Development (behavorial); development of site ongoing.

Individuals divide into same five groups to discuss obstacles to ‘Needs’ (brainstorm approaches for obstacles)

Results of Now-Need Group Discussions

Group 1 (presented by Keith M. Fiels)
Talked about issue of “triage”; separate out long, medium, and short terms tasks (three prong approach)
What are things we can do to produce immediate results?
Obstacles: No centralized group to concentrate on improvements (simple TQM model); no way to take usability info. or complaints; and no way to check for duplicate content